Development and Democracy

We have been actively engaging with the debate on privacy and data protection in India, that has gained traction in the context of the unique citizen ID/ Aadhaar project of the government. Through our media articles, we have emphasised the public value of privacy, bringing in an agency perspective to the debate. We have also foregrounded the…

'Digital Democracy in India' is our ongoing attempt to examine the emergence of a new governance paradigm in the country, characterized by the rise of ‘governance by networks’ and ‘rule by data’, from the standpoint of inclusive citizenship. We are primarily concerned with tracing critical directions for institutional overhaul, so that the…

The Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBF) has commissioned IT for Change to develop a paper that will critically analyse the government's Digital India programme The paper will assess the key gaps and opportunities for gender equality in relation to the programme and recommend a strategic action plan in this regard.

In the article,'Privacy protection: India seems to be going the NSA-PRISM way, when it comes to surveillance' the authors comment upon the fragile nature of a data protection in India that is dependent one sided user contracts entered into between corporations and citizens, coupled with the absence of legislative protections.

Parminder Jeet Singh was invited by the Centre for Policy Studies, IIT Bombay to deliver a talk on 'Digital Data - The New Raw Material in the Globalising Economy' as part of the Development Discourse Series. The talk conducts a political economy unpacking of data collection, use, and regulation; and also delves into the concept and…

The Supreme Court of India is in the midst of a heated debate for the need of a constitutionally recognized, explicit right to privacy. In the article 'Privacy in the Digital Age', Parminder Jeet Singh argues for the horizontal application of the right to privacy against state and non-state actors. In the digital age it is the duty of the state…

In the article 'Trading Away our Digital Rights', Parminder Jeet Singh notes with concern the usurpation of digital issues by the ever increasing ambit of global trade treaties. The fundamental shift in the way corporations function has resulted in troves of user data, which is inter alia crucial for policy building, being held by these…

IT for Change seeks to collaborate with researchers and scholars from seven sites in the global South (three in Asia, two in Africa, two in South America) and three in the global North (Europe and North America) for a research project, ‘Policy Frameworks for digital platforms-Moving from openness to inclusion’, supported by the International…

Platformization is a key facet of the global economy today. Platforms, as understood through informational capitalism, are not just online market places – they are market makers. As “a set of digital frameworks for social and marketplace interactions” (Kenny & Zysman, 2016), platforms replace…